Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Othello

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Othello

MurroughOBrien 19:54, April 14, 2010 (UTC)

I apologize, but I am unable to do this due to exams, anyone is free to review this article. -- Sir SF13 (Talk) GUN WotM RotM FBotM VFH SK Maj. ΥΣΣ 23:13 EST 3 May, 2010

Actually, I've found some free time, this will be done within two hours -- Sir SF13 (Talk) GUN WotM RotM FBotM VFH SK Maj. ΥΣΣ 18:34 EST 4 May, 2010

Humour:	3.5	The way I review, I generally put the majority of my comments and suggestions in the humor section. This allows me to be lazy keep all of my thoughts organized. I'll give you my first impressions after one read through and then go in for a more detailed look. Initial Impressions Well, I thought this was going to be an interesting piece, but alas, it appears I was mistaken. To be honest, this was a little painful to read. Your article suffers from needless randomness and incoherent flow. What I mean is that there's no unifying concept if you will, whereas the picture implies your article is a parody of Obama and Clinton in the context of Othello, instead you make it into half a minstrel show, half just nonsense. I think this article needs a bit of work. Section by Section Introduction Right off the bat we have inconsistencies and problems. First off, let's address the quote. I feel as though it really is unnecessary and particularly not very funny. Having a quote by the Blackadder would be fine if the quote had something to do with the article and was funny. I would work on it. Secondly, you mention Will Shakespeare as the author in addition to David Hockney and B. Traven. You need to settle on one author for the sake of consistency. Go with Shakespeare, its easier and melds better with the fact that you article is about his play. The setting too, 1970, seems completely random and serves no comedic purpose and simply confuses. Let's also address the fact that making an Iraq reference in the introduction along with blackface jokes just kind of sets up a bad tone for the whole thing. In general, this introduction reflects the general nature of the article; meme-ish and random. What you need to do is come up with a single unifying concept for the article and build from there. Once you do that you can focus on making a better introduction. First Production and Publication This section makes absolutely no sense and contains not an ounce of humor. Once again, confusion and randomness abound as you again throw in contradictory information. Instead of the 1970's we now have 1914, and we add yet another author into the mix, Philip Marlowe. I would advise you to completely throw out what you have in this section. Synopsis Without getting too bogged down in details, this is a mess. Contradictions to what you've already written aside, there isn't much of redeemable value here in terms of humor. What you've written here is only slightly related to the plot of the play in general. i feel that you're forcing Othello into a context that he shouldn't be in. I can hardly think of the allegorical significance of making Othello white and placing him in this context. What you need to do is find a much more clever way to make fun of the plays plot, or the issues surrounding the play. What did work though was your joke about Desdemona and dr. whatever his name was making a genetically modified beast with two backs, a not-so-subtle reference to a famous line from the play. While I don't this really works because the genetic modification theme is just a little too out there, this style of humor works. Find ways to poke fun at the more memorabke parts fo the play. Source And now more contradictions. William Shatner is now an author of the play. More random reference and poor star trek jokes are not what you need to be including here. Blackface Unneeded and not especially funny, this section is totally pointless. I understand that it is integral to your 'concept' of Othello being a blackface act, but the whole concept doesn't work very well, or at least the way you go about it doesn't work very well. At this point I'm winding down because I'm basically going to suggest that you need to start over from scratch or do some very heavy revisions to this entire article, and this is a section that needs to disappear if this is going to become a good article. Everything else The rest of the article kind of tappers off from the blackface section. There really wasn't very much that I liked from this point on, and to be fair, there wasn't much that I liked beforehand. Basically everything from this point on suffers from essentially the same things as everything beforehand: to much random, too much contradiction, and too many cliched subjects. Final Humor Comments There really isn't much here in the way of humor, this article suffers greatly from unneeded cliches, randomness, and contradiction. Here is what I suggest; start over. Come up with a single concept for what you want to do with this and go from there. Try to be less random and more funny. I'm sure you've seen this posted all over the place, but you really need to have a look at HTBFANJS before you attempt this again.
Concept:	4	There really isn't much in the way of a single concept here. Like I've said, you need to brainstorm and figure out what sort of single concept you're going to do for this article. Once you've done that you need to stick with it. as it stands though, I would suggest revisiting the bit you had about the best with two backs. While I encourage you not not utilize that joke, I would encourage you to seek out and emulate this kind of humor, subtly poking fun at the play's plot and the more memorable or famous parts. Utilizing this can really help turn this pile of randomness into a really funny article. One thing to keep in mind about Othello though is that the play was the complete opposite of a racist commentary, especially for its time. Therefore, if you're going to utilize racism as a major part of this article, you need to make it completely obvious that you understand this as a writer, which is something I think you were going for but did not come across very well.
Prose and formatting:	7	For the most part this isn't too bad, but you do have some rather obvious grammar and syntax errors. An example that comes to mind without any reference to the actual text is the fact that in the introduction you leave out the period in "Dr." You have rather large run-on sentences in the synopsis section as well. Stuff like this: "There’s a bit of comic relief with a bumbling manservant, but we shan’t speak of that" reads very awkwardly. There are other various syntax issues throughout in which sentences feel jumbled and stumble over themselves. Make sure that if/when you rewrite this you pay particular attention to proof-reading so that the overall product will have a much more professional feel.
Images:	4	Ok, I really though the first image was clever. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with anything in the article. This is sometimes OK and can even be a humorous technique to utilize, but it really doesn't work here. It's further complicated by the caption which leads the reader to think that the article will be based around this image, which it isn't. Perhaps there is a new concept lurking within this image for a re-write? or perhaps not, I guess its up to you. Make sure if you utilize this image again that it relates to your concept. This second image is so cliched that it is barely worth the criticism. Based on the fact that I think you need to completely redo the whole article, I think you could do without any image like this, but if you stick with the black-face reference, you need to find a more original image: this image is all over Uncyc and the internet. generally though you need one or two more images for the length of the article you have. Make sure if you rewrite this to pick images that correspond well to your concept. Focus on using the captions for witty one-liners as well.
Miscellaneous:	3	My overall enjoyment from reading this article
Final Score:	21.5	This article needs to be rewritten in my opinion. If it were up to me 90% of what you have here would go away. Ultimately it is up to you to decide what to do with this, but I highly suggest brainstorming a single concept and forming the article around that. Make it a subtle parody of the plot and utilize much less randomness, it really isn't very funny. Have a look at HTBFANJS as well. if you have any questions, comments, or complaints, please don't hesitate to shout at me.
Reviewer:	-- Sir SF13 (Talk) GUN WotM RotM FBotM VFH SK Maj. ΥΣΣ 19:24 EST 4 May, 2010